Windows PE (WinPE) is the Windows Preinstallation Environment, used for installation and repair of Windows computers.

Using iPXE and wimboot, you can boot into Windows PE via HTTP. You can then connect to a standard Windows file server to install a full version of Windows to the local hard disk (or to an iSCSI target).

Booting Windows PE via HTTP is much faster than using traditional TFTP-based methods such as Windows Deployment Services (WDS). On a Gigabit Ethernet network, it should take less than two seconds to download a typical 200MB Windows PE image.

You can now connect to a Windows (or Samba) file server to run the Windows installer. For example, if you have copied the contents of your Windows installation DVD-ROM to \\myserver\installers\win8, then you can start the installer using:

You can customise your Windows PE image to include drivers for your network card, if your card is not already supported by Windows PE.

Download the drivers for your network card, and extract the driver to C:\temp\winpe\drivers. If you are using the ADK then you will need to download a driver compatible with Windows 8; if you are using the AIK then you will need a driver compatible with Windows 7.

and copy it to the directory on your web server containing your boot.ipxe script.

Configure your DHCP server to provide the URI of your install.ipxe script as the boot filename, and the SAN URI of your iSCSI target as the root-path. If your iSCSI target uses access control lists (ACLs), then you may also need to provide the correct initiator-iqn.

You should see the diskless computer connect to the iSCSI target and then prompt you to ”Press F12 to install Windows”:

Press F12 to begin the installation process. If you have already added a startup batch file as described above, then the Windows installer will start automatically. If not, then connect to your file server and run the Windows installer manually.

Proceed to install Windows as usual. When you reach the ”Where do you want to install Windows?” screen, you should see the iSCSI disk appear as a possible install location:

howto/winpe.txt · Last modified: 2016/07/06 18:58 by mcb30

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